.
CONSERVATION
Everglades Action Alert
Call Governor Jeb Bush now at 850-488-4441 and tell him to "VETO" SB626,
a
destructive bill that may allow the sugar industry to delay the cleanup
of
America's Everglades. Every day, large parts of the Everglades are
being
lost because of Big Sugar's pollution. The bill, backed by more than
40
sugar industry lobbyists, would extend pollution limits and jeopardize
the
ability to truly restore this natural treasure.
* Call Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 850-488-4441 NOW and tell him to
uphold
the state's commitment to restore the Everglades by VETOING SB626,
"The
Everglades Whenever Act."
* You can also e-mail the Governor at jeb@myflorida.com
* You an also send/fax a handwritten or typed letter to:
Governor Jeb Bush
PL 05 The Capitol
400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Fax: 850-487-0801
-----------------------------------
The deadly "Everglades Whenever Act" (SB626) would:
- Require compliance of water quality standards only to "the maximum
extent
practicable," threatening water quality as well as endangered plant
and
animal habitat;
- Eliminate clear pollution clean-up deadlines, leaving polluters to
comply
with water quality standards at the "earliest practicable date;"
- Re-open the 1996 voter-approved Florida constitution amendment that
clearly says polluters should pay. Instead, the bill states that payment
of
the bulk of cleanup costs by homeowners and other real property owners
--
instead of the actual polluters -- is fair;
- Undermine the Everglades restoration consensus between the state and
federal government.
You can view the bill at:
http://www.flsenate.gov/cgi-bin/view_page.pl?Tab=session&Submenu=1&FT=D&File
=sb0626er.html&Directory=session/2003/Senate/bills/billtext/html/
Sierra Protest in Downtown Miami
Fifty people attended the Sierra Club rally at the Federal Courthouse
in Miami on Friday, May 2. Sierrans came to downtown Miami on a work day
to show the media, the judge and everyone, that Floridians want the cleanup
of the Everglades to continue on schedule. Apparently, Judge Hoeveler
agreed, because at the end of the day he said that he was going to proceed
with the cleanup by 2006 and that the legislature wasn’t going to interfere.
At the courhouse, U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler had ordered
an emergency meeting of state regulators, water managers and others involved
in the cleanup plan in his courtroom two days after Florida lawmakers passed
a bill to slow down and possibly de-rail the cleanup plan.
The bill, put together by Big Sugar lobbyists and supporters,
has rushed through the Florida legislature and it appears that only
Governor Jeb Bush can stop it. That bill could stall restoration
and jeopardize $4 billion in federal aid. According to a Sierra Club bulletin,
the bill would: replace efforts to set a 10 part per billion
Water Quality Criterion for phosphorus with a “planning objective” of 15
parts per billion, a 50 percent increase in allowable pollution the Everglades
cannot survive; prohibit the enforcement of any phosphorus discharge limits
on waters flowing into the Everglades until 2026; freeze any possible expansion
of the highly successful stormwater treatment areas and the addition of
advance treatment technologies until the distant future, possibly after
2026.; thwart the will of the people expressed in a 1996 state-wide ballot
referendum that polluters in the Everglades pay the full cost of cleanup.
Proposed legislative amendments would also attempt to secure
approval for a plan to have all private property owners from Orlando to
Key West pay the lion’s share of cleanup costs for agricultural pollution
on a permanent basis. An overwhelming majority of voters in 1996 approved
a constitutional amendment directing that polluters pay these costs.
Everglades activists are asking everyone to call and write and
write again to Governor Bush and to Florida Senators and tell them
to stop the new Everglades Destruction Act, H1893/S626. Call and e-mail
and write.
Miami Group would like to thank Stuart Reed, Alan Farago, Jonalthan
Ullman, Rod Jude Kent Harris Robbins, Mark Oncavage and Stephen Mahoney.
Thanks also go to
Broward Conservation Co-Chair Brian Lewis and Excom members Julia Heinlein,
Walt Slattery, Linda Brown.Special thanks to Maria Papazian and Elaine
Codias who helped with signs and props and to Coky Michel for re-introducing
our Big Sugar costumes.
The Everglades Ecosystem
Spanning the southern tip of the Florida peninsula and most of Florida Bay, the Everglades ecosystem is home to an extraordinary number of rare and sensitive species of animals and plants. The area contains both temperate and tropical plant communities, including sawgrass prairies, mangrove and Cypress swamps, pinelands, and hardwood hammocks, as well as marine and estuarine environments. The area also supports a rich diversity of wildlife, including many species of large wading birds, such as the roseate spoonbill, wood stork, great blue heron and a variety of egrets. The Everglades has been designated a World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve. However, the ecosystem has suffered from the effects of human development. Since 1900, large tracts of Everglades wetlands have been converted to agricultural and residential uses. This abundance of "new" land supported and stimulated massive population growth. To support this expanding population, private developers cut numerous canals and built new roads through native habitat. In 1948, the federal government undertook the "Central and South Florida Project" -- a gargantuan and unprecedented program to replace the natural habitat and hydrology of the Everglades ecosystem with an elaborate system of roads, canals, levees, and water-control structures which were intended to provide flood protection for urban and agricultural lands. The alteration of regional wetland areas, estuaries, and bays - combined with increasing population pressures, changing land uses, and accompanying water pollution - have largely destroyed the natural functioning of the Everglades ecosystem.
According to the National Park Service, over 50% of the original wetland areas in the Everglades ecosystem no longer exist. The numbers of wading birds, such as egrets, herons, and ibises, have been reduced by at least 90%. Entire populations of animals, including the manatee, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, the Miami blackheaded snake, the wood stork, and the Florida panther, are at risk of disappearing. Massive die-offs of seagrass beds in Florida Bay have been followed by the extensive losses of wading birds, fish, shrimp, sponges, and mangroves. As explained by Park Service biologists "[t]hese grim indicators warn of a system under assault and in jeopardy of collapse."
Campaign Goal, Message, and Strategy Goal: Protect the Everglades Ecosystem by advocating for its restoration.
• Decompartmentalize the Everglades by removing water blockage from canals, levees and roads (ie. Tamiami Trail) between Lake Kissimmee to Florida Bay
• Eliminate a Corps of Engineersâ plan to store large quantities of water in the aquifer through seasonal pumping and retrieval (a technique known as Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR).
• Halt mining of wetlands in the historic Everglades
• Enforce the polluter pay provision of the Florida Constitution requiring the sugar industry to pay the full cost of cleaning up its phosphorus byproduct to 10 ppb.
• Solidify a January 2001 Air Force decision to prohibit commercial aviation at the former Homestead Air Force Base.
Primary messages: The key to Everglades restoration is to buy land now. Protect Everglades by halting activities that harm the Everglades.
Recent Successes
• Successfully Stopped Mining permits from being issued in 2000.
• Air Force decided to prohibit commercial aviation at the former Homestead Air Force Base.
• Successfully mobilized Sierrans around the state beat back what was called a "done-deal," state legislation to allow untreated water to be injected into groundwater through ASR wells, a major feature of the Everglades Plan. This was a crucial legislative victory for Sierra Club.
• Successfully worked with NRDC to place assurance language alternatives to Lake Belt mining pilot project. Led effort to formalize peer review by a committee such as the National Academy of Sciences into the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan ("CERP") bill.
Political Realities
The well drilling, sugar and rock mining industries are all very powerful and are currently controlling the direction of Everglades Restoration. They have the ear of Governor Jeb Bush, who is neither willing to fund research and science that could prove adversarial to the entrenched status quo, nor stop or curtail their activities or mandate that they pay for the pollution they cause to the Everglades. The well drilling industry stands to make hundreds of millions in profits from the CERP by poking holes in the earth to dump waste and stormwater in the vertical equivalent of channelizing the Kissimmee River. Their vision for a restored Everglades by storing and retrieving water in Floridaâs groundwater is being actively pursued by the state and by the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
The Sierra Club
will seek to reverse their efforts and promote a natural restoration. We
will join forces with residents who are affected by those activities and
other groups who seek to protect the Everglades. We will try to influence
the Army Corps of Engineers decision makers and engage Federal and State
lawmakers.
Scientific Comment on Everglades Restudy
The Honorable
Bruce Babbitt
Secretary of
the Interior
U. S. Department
of the Interior
18th and C
Streets, N. W.
Washington,
DC 20240
January 28th, 1999
Dear Mr. Secretary:
We know of your personal deep commitment to protect and restore the Florida Everglades and are enormously heartened by the Clinton Administration's recent decision to expand the area of natural ecosystems to be protected. However, we are deeply concerned about the state of the C&SF Restudy. There are serious failings in the plans being considered. These are deep, systemic problems, ones unlikely to be overcome by tinkering with the existing alternative.
This letter asks for more scientific study. The Restudy needs to be peer reviewed by external experts. The National Research Council would be an obvious choice to do such a review.
Our concerns are these.
1. The initial approach characterizes a "Natural Systems Model" to which subsequent models are compared. No one from outside the Byzantine world of Floridian water management will understand why this model has "Natural" in its title. We accept that some areas are urban, others in agriculture, and yet others so over-drained that restoration to natural conditions will be impossible. This accepted, there are too many other circumstances where the implied natural conditions are contradictory. For instance, NSM has a hydroperiod of 102 weeks ÷ dry downs every couple of years ÷ for Water Conservation Area 3B. The hydroperiod for the adjacent, down-stream portion of northeast Shark River Slough, within the extension of Everglades National Park is 400 weeks ÷ dry downs every eight years or so. There is nothing "natural" in these differences, only the basis for continued conflict.
2. The NSM parameters now become the targets the other models must match. When these targets make little ecological or hydrological sense, they force solutions to be ever more complicated and expensive.
3. Your staff in the National Park Service and the Biological Resources Division of USGS have continually pressed for structural and operation approaches to the Restudy that would favor minimal or passive water management. Such approaches include the dynamic storage and natural lag process of the undisturbed marsh. Your staff are right. Such natural processes have not been fully considered. The half century history of the region shows that a highly manipulated approach combined with an extensively compartmented system has consistently failed to restore the ecosystems. Indeed, it often has seriously harmed them during periods of drought or flood. It is also a recipe for continued conflict and litigation.
4. The plans call for many new water resource technologies ÷ aquifer storage, waste-water reuse, storage in rock-mining pits, and so on.
We applaud creative new solutions. But what if these expensive new technologies do not achieve their goals? Ecosystem restoration will then entail a greatly changed vision of balancing the allocation of water to the ecosystem and existing and future users. We do not underestimate the difficulties you face in managing the trade-offs between a National Park and its biological resources and the growing human demands for water that lie upstream. The Restudy effort has been exhaustive. Yet experience of other large-scale efforts suggests that outside experts should always vet the recommendations. A review might confirm the plans as the only ones that are practicable. If not, then it is better to notice them now before we Americans commit the many billions of dollars needed to develop the next centuryâs plan for the people of Florida ÷ and the ecosystems on which they depend.
Sincerely, Stuart
L. Pimm; University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Department
of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
and (listed alphabetically)
Paul R. Ehrlich; Stanford University Gary K. Meffe; Editor, Conservation Biology Gordon Orians; University of Washington Peter Raven, Missouri Botanic Garden Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University
A signature page follows:
Stuart L. Pimm
Paul R. Ehrlich
Gary K. Meffe
Gordon Orians
Peter Raven
Edward O. Wilson
Cc: Jamie R.
Clark, US Fish and Wildlife Service Togo G. West, Jr. Secretary of the
Army Col. Joe R. Miller, US Army Corps of Engineers Sam E. Poole III, South
Florida Water Management District Steve Forsythe, US Fish and Wildlife
Service Richard G. Ring, Superintendent, Everglades National Park
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